Foundation & One

We had much excitement last Monday when we welcomed next year's Foundation children to spend the whole day at school with us. They experienced playing games in the KLC, music, art, and eating recess and lunch with their Buddies. The current F/1 grade got to experience a day in another classroom!

We are all enjoying the experience of swimming, especially since the weather has turned warm. In the afternoon, after swimming, we plan on doing a variety of Christmas craft activities. We are looking forward to the special Christmas activities' day next Monday and Tuesday. Already we have met Santa and received a picture story book.

In Literacy. we have listened to some information about reindeers. We are currently writing lots of facts. These will be made into posters. Ask your child if they can tell you some!

This Thursday, will be the last day for take- home readers. If you would like some for the holidays please let us know via your child's diary.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the very best for the New Year. Enjoy the holiday break.

Mrs Chalmers, Classroom Teacher

Year 1 & 2

A busy week to finish off a busy year!

We have been very lucky with our weather this week for our swimming classes.

Hopefully the students have improved and enjoyed the time in the water.

Next Monday and Tuesday the students will be involved in some fun multi-age group Christmas activities.

Just a reminder next Tuesday night is Awards Night and the F-2 students will be performing a couple of songs.

The next day will be the pool party break up with a free BBQ lunch.

Then everyone can look forward to some holiday and family fun!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy break together and don’t forget to keep reading!

Mrs McKenzie and Miss Martin, Classroom Teachers

Year 3

Season’s Greetings Everyone

How exciting and proud we are of Grade 3 after their win in the Christmas Tree Festival. Congratulations all round.

Malmsbury Doxa Camp was a huge success. All of Grade 3 challenged themselves both emotionally and physically. I was also extremely proud of their behaviour and respect they displayed to Beulah Primary School, Camp Staff, School Staff and each other.

I would like to take the time to say how honoured and privileged I have been to teach this fantastic group of students. I have grown to know them extremely well in the past year and would like to thank them for enabling me be a part of their grade three year. I wish them all the best for the rest of their learning journey.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Mrs Torney, Classroom Teacher.

Year 4

It’s hard to believe we have made it to the end of the year and our last newsletter!

What an amazing ride this year has been. Thank you to the students for each bringing their unique personalities and talents to our learning community.

We have rounded out our year with camp to Malmsbury last week. It was wonderful to see students embrace the challenges that they faced and their ability to push themselves out of their comfort zones. It was also wonderful to see students tackle group challenges with ease, working collaboratively to achieve a common goal like stacking the highest stack of crates or taking that extra step to get someone a bit higher on the giant swing. Amazing work everyone you are one dynamic force when working together!

This week with swimming, students have already shown to be able to do amazing things in the pool, learning valuable lessons about water safety.

We thank awesome adults at home for their support this year and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday break, as we look forward to an exciting 2024!!

Miss Anderson, Classroom Teacher.

Year 5 & 6

A special visit from Santa Claus himself yesterday reminds us that the end of the year is quickly approaching. That does not mean that the learning in 5/6 has slowed!!

We have been exploring Genre during our reading lessons to ensure we can identify and differentiate Fiction and Non-Fiction texts. Miss D and Mrs T have been including lots of hands on and movement activities to ensure engagement from everyone and this has helped us to learn at our best. We are much better at not only identifying Fiction and Non-Fiction texts, but we can also determine the text type such a biography or science fiction.

In Maths we have continued to extend our knowledge of 2D and 3D Shapes, taking advantage of the glorious sunshine and getting outside to draw shapes. We have been working hard at identifying the properties of shapes and the different names that each shape can have. Did you know that Poly means many and Gon means sides? This helps us to remember that any closed 2D shape with straight sides is a polygon!

Last Friday we said ‘bye for now’ to Miss D who has begun Maternity Leave. We got together with Miss A’s class and had some baby shower games to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Martin. It has been so wonderful to see such an empathetic, caring group of students be so invested in Miss D’s journey. A very common question for Miss D was “Will you come back and visit us with the baby?” to which the answer was an enthusiastic “Yes of course!”

Some reminders for the last week of school:

What is on?	When?
EVERYDAY this week	Swimming
Wednesday 6th December	Year 6: Full day of Year 7 Transition Please bring a container for cooking!
Thursday 7th December	Grade 6 Graduation @ Wedderburn Golf Club 7pm
Tuesday 12th December	Awards Night @ KLC Wedderburn College 7pm
Wednesday 13th December	Pool Break Up Day

Merry Christmas and a safe, restful holiday to our families in Grade 5/6! It has been a wonderful year and we have loved every minute of Grade 5/6. All the best!

Mrs Turnbull and Miss Douglas, Classroom Teachers

Cooking it Up in Year 7 and 8 Food Technology

Food Technology 2023 came to an end with our last Year 7 lesson yesterday (Monday 4/12/23) Students had drawn their own designs for decorating Christmas biscuits and in their last lesson, they put their designs together (with the help of Kyeishia in Year 10….thank you Kyeishia), with rather garish results. But it was a nice, fun way to end the year.

Both Year 7 and 8 students had a go at designing their own pizzas. Violet’s spinach and fetta pizza in the shape of a fish was a standout! In Year 8 we made pizza dough from scratch to learn about the role of yeast in bread making. Finding out about the history of pizza making was also part of the general Year 8 theme of International Cooking. Recipes we cooked included Spicy Chicken Stew (Ethiopia), Fajitas (Mexico), Hato Sabure (dove shaped Japanese butter cookies) and Palmier biscuits (France). We tried to investigate more about the history of some of the dishes and ingredients as we went along. Well done, everyone for a great year.

Miss Moody, Food Design Teacher.

MY9 Duke of Edinburgh Adventure Journey

The Year 9 (MY9) students completed their DOE Adventure Journey (AJ) in Week 9, Term 4. The students who attended the final Adventure Journey at Lake Eppalock were, Jade Cramp, Indi Simpson, Chloe Looby, Dakota Martin, Will Cunningham, Deacon Tansley, Jason Sanderson, Ollie Huismann, Noah Winslett, Aaron Thomas. Well done, to all of these students for their perseverance, resilience and optimism throughout the journey.

Students were responsible for supplying their own food, they were paired up to make things easier and were required to use a trangia to cook.

On the first day students needed to set up their tents and organise themselves for an afternoon of canoeing. Off we went! For most, the start didn’t seem too difficult; it was when it got choppy and rough near the Spillway that students needed to work hard. Mr Lockhart provided us with some entertainment when his kayak started to sink due to the bung being misplaced. All was well when Miss Herrington has a spare one floating around.

Day two. Students packed up everything as we were relocating camp sites. All equipment was loaded into their barrels, a lot of fitting and squeezing was required to make sure everyone had their belongings for the next camp. Off we set. The barrels added new challenges and would often move but luckily no one tipped out. We paddle for 3 hours or so before staff got a weather notification and unfortunately were required to return to our original campsite to pack the bus and car before the storm hit.

Lucky enough we were able to get accommodation at a Scout Camp and were safe and dry. Students then enjoyed a range of activities in Bendigo as a reward for completing their journey.

Thank you to everyone for a great camp.

Ms Herrington and Miss Van De Wetering, Duke of Ed and Homeroom Teachers

School For Student Leadership - Alpine Campus

A highlight of my time at the School For Student Leadership was when we went on Expedition 2. We went from the 15th of November to the 17th of November. Two expo groups went at the same time due to staff shortages. Loch and Tabletop groups were the two that went. Loch’s schools were Elwood College and Kew High School. Tabletops schools were Wedderburn College and Orbost Secondary. We left the Alpine School at 9 in the morning to start out 12 kilometre hike towards Blair’s Hut. We stopped at Mount Loch and climbed up it to have morning tea. It was around 3 kilometres from where we started. Mount Loch was one of the smaller mountains around there so it didn’t take to long to climb up. We sat there for around 20ish minutes before going down and continuing our hike. Most of it was downhill so it didn’t take too long to get to our lunch spot at Red Robin Mine. This was an old mineshaft at around the halfway point to Blair’s Hut. We stopped and had lunch there for around 30 minutes before continuing. We then had short stops a couple of times throughout the last little stretch to take our packs off and rest our backs. We got to our hut at around 4 o’clock. When getting there we were all so relieved to be able to take our packs off. We put up our tents and explored for a little while before having dinner. On my trangia we cooked nacho’s which were alright. Rice was very starchy. The next day we woke up at 6, packed up our tents and headed off to our next campsite Dibbin’s Hut. This hike was an 8 kilometre hike back the way we came. We didn’t stop too many times in between because we just really wanted to get our heavy packs off. We also had a side hike we could do if we wished to continue walking. We went up to Bassalt Temple. A 2 kilometre walk uphill. It was a huge pile of rocks up the top and climbed on and took photos. From the top we could see our campsite!! It was so small, we yelled out to them and apparently they heard which is crazy. The rest of the kids that stayed at the bottom rested and started setting up dinner. They definitely missed out though because the views were so spectacular up the top. I had nacho’s again for dinner, we tried to change how we made it though so it wasn’t very starchy and not too much pasta sauce. It did taste a little bit better but definitely wasn’t the best. The next day we woke up early to start our incline 8 kilometre hike. It was a steep hike uphill, we stopped many times. It took us awhile to get up and back down the valley. It took us around 3 hours to walk down to Derrick’s Hut which was the halfway point. We stopped there for around 20 minutes before doing the last 4 kilometres to the carpark. We also had lunch just before the carpark and did a expo review. Expedition 2 was very exciting and had really nice views. I learned a lot of teamwork skills and I learned lot’s about other people I didn’t know already. I also enjoyed it because it was outside and the weather was really nice.

Chanelle Badenhorst, Year 9

Our Year 12 Graduating Class

Farewell and Good Luck.

It has been a busy few weeks for our Year 12s since we said goodbye to them at our Celebration Day Assembly. They have all studied and sat Exams and some have begun their career pathways. Another formal event was held on Friday 17th November, when students, their loved ones and their teachers attended the Graduation Dinner, held at Wedderburn Golf Club.

The students all made an effort to dress in their finest and our school captains, Eliza and Zen presented their speech and awards with respect, maturity, and polish. These two students have done a fantastic effort of representing Wedderburn College and should be proud of their year.

Guest speaker was past student, John McNamara, who was able to tell us about his pathway from a not too successful VCE year to now being in an occupation that he loves and has so many opportunities for him. He was able to example resilience and being able to alter his career path when things didn’t go to plan.

A big thanks to the decorating committee, Mr Gretgrix for MCing the night, to the Parent’s Club for their ongoing support, and Joan for always helping when needed.

We wish our Year 12 students luck and happiness as they move onto further studies or employment. We know that they will excel at whatever they choose to do.

Class of 2023 – Left to Right

Anna Weber, Rachel Humphrey, Eliza Turnbull, Nathan Crow-Williams, Pippi Hartnell, Neve Nisbett, Ella Bailey, Zen Joyner, Brianna Sanderson, Ciara-Rose Sims and Conrad Sugden.

Mrs Woodman, Year 11 & 12 Homeroom Teacher

PE News - Mr P and Miss Milne

Overview of the year

What a year we have had!

In 2023, we had three successful Whole College Sporting Events – Swimming, Cross Country and Athletics. We want to thank all students, parents/carers, staff and the community for their participation and support on these days. It is always fantastic to see so many come along to support our students and get dressed up in house colours.

Our Primary students also participated in various sports as part of the Calder schools and the Hockey Roadshow. This included Hot Shots, Winter Sports, Athletics and T20 Cricket Blast. Whilst our Secondary students also had the chance to compete in the Triathlon and test their Swimming, Cross Country and Athletics skills at NCD and LMR competitions.

This year we once again had Aussie Hoops Basketball on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. Thank you to Mr Lockhart, Mr P, Mr G and any other staff member who assisted with this program.

Keep your body moving and stay active over the holidays.

Mr P’s Secondary Student of the Fortnight

The final Secondary PE student of the fortnight is awarded to Noah Winslett. Noah always completes all classwork and homework and actively participates in practical classes. He is a terrific role model to other students and should be proud of the progress he has made. Well done, Noah.

Miss M’s Primary PE Student of the Fortnight

The final Primary PE student of the fortnight goes to Hayden Guillot. Since arriving at Wedderburn College, Hayden has consistently demonstrated the expected behaviours and has been an excellent role model in PE. Well done, Hayden!

OSHC Program

To Parent/Carers,

Please be aware, if your child/children has a booking to attend Wedderburn OSHC Program ensure that you inform the College of any changes which may arise. This needs to done only by the Parent/Carer and not by the student. This will avoid any confusion.

Thank you for your understanding.

Trina Vaughan, Melinda Springthorpe, Annette Hunt.

OSHC Coordinators.

Homework Club

Homework Club is held each Tuesday and Thursday at lunchtime in Room 11, students can drop in and work in a quiet, warm space. They can work independently or get help as required. As this is a voluntary program designed to give students an opportunity to catch up, own their learning, or get ahead, Homework Club is a chance for students to demonstrate our core values of Responsibility and Resilience.

Compass

Don't wait for the end of semester to view your child's progress. Log in to Compass and view teacher feedback and feed forward at any time by checking out your child's Learning Tasks. Children also receive regular (every 5 weeks) progress reports on their Organisation, Behaviour, Attitude to Learning and Work Completion. Learning Tasks and Reports can be found on you child's profile page.